


Little Glass Bottles

by aprilwitch



Category: Watchmen
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Gen, Multi, OT3, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:22:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilwitch/pseuds/aprilwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan and Walter drunk-dial Laurie while she's visiting her mother. It goes about as well as you'd expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Glass Bottles

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the TFLN (and kink meme prompt) "(770) We're in his room writing songs about America. There's a verse about a dead dog. There's tequila everywhere"; and a word war with friends, prompt 'little glass bottles'.
> 
> Pretty much 100% ridiculous.

Visiting Sally is always an ordeal for Laurie. While it's always nice to see her mother again, they're too similar to do anything but grate on each other when they're together for more than fifteen minutes; a weekend like this is a massive undertaking, filled with disapproving comments about drinking (on Laurie's part) and smoking (on Sally's part). As much as she loves her mother -- and she does, she really does, as much as she complains -- Laurie always dreads her trips to California a little, puts them off for as long as she can, and ends up coming home exhausted.

This time is worse than usual, because not only did she have to fly coach -- an ordeal that almost makes her miss the 'Manhattan transfer' -- she's missing Dan and Walter something terrible. For years, going away from Jon hadn't felt like leaving a lover so much as getting a reprieve from a long assignment, but now she's feeling homesick for the littlest things: Walter's scathing criticism of the 'liberal news bias' scrawled in the margins of the morning paper, the way Dan always smells a little like engine oil even when he hasn't been working in the garage... it makes the weekend seem almost endless.

It is approximately two o'clock in the morning on Sunday when she gets the call. Laurie wakes on the third ring and groans, debating on whether or not to answer it, loathing the idea of getting out of her luxuriously soft bed. It's probably Dan and Walter again, calling before they leave for patrol because they know she'll be worrying about them. She rolls over and tries to go back to sleep, praying that her mother will answer it. But Sally is a deep sleeper, and the shrill ringing of the phone ends up driving her nuts, so she stumbles out of bed and grabs the telephone off the wall outside the guest room door, pulling the cord with her into the room as she sits down heavily on the bed.

"Hello? Who is this?" she mumbles, her voice still groggy with sleep.

There's no answer at first, just heavy breathing, and Laurie groans again, flopping back down on her bed. "Seriously? Boys, if this is you, this is _really_ not a good time for one of your sex calls. What the-" and she hears a low voice in the background say something she can't quite hear. Something glass smashes on a tile floor.

"What the hell is going on? Who is this?"

"Laurel," the person on the other end says, and it's Walter. His voice is garbled and hard to understand, although she can't tell whether that's his voice or just her mother's ancient phone. The cloud of sleep still fogging her mind vanishes immediately, her mind swimming with all of the frightening reasons Walter could be calling this early and not say anything. _Oh god, what if he's hurt, what if he was stabbed on patrol, what if something got fucked up and now Walter's bleeding out on the floor, oh jesus god where's Dan--_

She stops the train of thought before it can get any further and speaks clearly into the phone. "Walter, is everything all right? Where's Dan? Do you need an ambulance? Walter, _talk to me_."

"Oh. Laurel. The- the kitchen light is spinning. Did you know that?" _Jesus Christ, the Terror of the Goddamn Underworld is drunk-dialing me_. The surrealness of the situation mixes with the relief that he isn't dying and frustration that he woke her up at _two in the goddamn morning_ to tell her about _kitchen lights_ to form a conglomerate of emotions that are definitely too difficult to think about so early in the morning while sober.

"Walter, you're drunk, aren't you." It isn't a question.

"Am _not_ drunk." He sounds slightly indignant. "They were little bottles. Just little green glass bottles. Thought green glass bottles were supposed to be American, patriotic, upstanding..." He trails off, as though realising how little sense he makes. "Anyhow, Daniel had more."

"Did not!" a familiar voice calls from the background, and Laurie hears a scuffle on the other end before Dan's voice rings through the phone, loud and cheerful. "Hi, Laurie. "

" _Walter_ is drinking? Our little tee-totaler? He doesn't even like it when _we_ drink."

"Yeah, that's why I told him-" There's a loud _thunk!_ on Dan's end, like the phone was dropped, and someone swears. Laurie hears the sounds of a brief altercation, and then Dan picks up the phone and resumes their conversation as if nothing had happened.

"We're writing a song about America," he says proudly. "There's a verse about a dead dog. There's tequila everywhere." He says the last sentence in a slightly bemused way, as if he can't figure out why the tequila is there. Laurie turns away from the phone and muffles her laughter into her pillow.

"Go to sleep, Dan," she says fondly. "And get some aspirin ready for Walter's first hangover tomorrow."

"Will do." Laurie can almost hear the cheek splitting grin she knows Dan is sporting now; he's always been a cheery drunk. "Oh, Laurie?"

"Yes, Dan?"

"I love you." Even through the liquor, Dan's voice is soft and sweet and so _genuine_ in its sentiment that it makes her want to cry, she's just so damn _happy_ to have these two flawed, wonderful men in her life. "Walter loves you too, right, Walter?" She hears a faint call of assent, and has to blink back a tear. God, you'd think _she_ was the drunk one.

"I love you too, you drunk idiots. Now go to sleep."

"Yes, ma'am."


End file.
